A VOICE OF SANITY

The Dr. Zhivago Option

Exclusive: Robert Ringer sees Republicans sidling up to 'Obamaviks' to stay in power

Robert Ringer is a New York Times No. 1 best-selling author and host of the highly acclaimed "Liberty Education Interview Series," which features interviews with top political, economic and social leaders. His latest book is "The Entrepreneur." To sign up for a free subscription to his pro-liberty, pro-free-market e-letter, A Voice of Sanity, CLICK HERE.

The other day, one of my son’s friends, who had just come home from college for the summer, stopped over to say hello. We chatted briefly, and I asked him if he was still planning on becoming an entrepreneur/businessman after he graduated from school next spring.

To my surprise, he said that because of the economy, he had changed his mind about pursuing a business career. He told me that he now planned to apply for a job with the CIA. Surprised, I asked, “What in the world made you decide to go to work for the CIA?”

Without pause, he responded, “It’s so tough to get a job nowadays that I figured I’d just go to work for the government, because there’s much more security in a government job.” I immediately thought to myself that standing right in front of me was a new Barack Obama voter!

It’s simple: Get as many people as possible working for the government – which can always meet its payroll by taking money from entrepreneurs and small-business people who create private-sector jobs – and thereby assure winning a majority of votes in every election.

It reminded me of a conversation I had many years ago with a brilliant, ultra-pragmatic, narcissistic acquaintance who had a hugely successful economic-consulting business. One day we were having a discussion about the United States’ relentless move toward collectivism, and I asked him, “Given how you’re addicted to the material things in life, what would you do if the United States ever became a full-fledged communist country?”

Without so much as a pause, he answered, in a matter-of-fact tone, “That wouldn’t be a problem. I’d just become a member of the Communist Party and work my way into the inner circle.” His response evoked a nervous chuckle from me, but the chuckle quickly faded as I realized he was deadly serious. His answer bothered me then, and it bothers me even more today.

The first thing that went through my mind after that conversation was the movie “Dr. Zhivago” and Rod Steiger’s character, Viktor Komarovsky. Komarovsky was a member of Russia’s elite class that dined on caviar and expensive vodka while the masses lived on the edge of starvation in abject poverty.

But when it became clear that the Bolshevik Revolution would succeed, Viktor Komarovsky simply cozied up to the revolutionary hierarchy and proclaimed himself to be a communist. He was well aware that revolutionary rhetoric was a fantasy, and that in every revolution, it’s the toughest and wiliest thugs who emerge as the new royalty.

For the masses, of course, things stay pretty much the same, though under communism they usually end up even worse off than they were before the revolution (as was certainly the case in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution).

Today, the Komarovsky mindset is a serious problem in the United States. I keep saying that Obama and Co. know they are going down to massive defeats if there are elections in 2010, but maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps I’ve underestimated their determination to get enough people on the government dole and government payroll to mathematically assure victory.

I continue to say that most of the big stories in the news are nothing more than distractions – distractions that take people’s focus off the biggest problem Americans are facing: an irreversible loss of their liberty. That includes the BP oil spill, illegal immigration and even Obama’s attempt – repeat, Obama’s attempt – to buy off Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff in their Senate races with Arlen Specter and Michael Bennet.

It’s not that some of these issues aren’t important; they are. But they are not as important as the prospect of Americans unthinkingly submitting to servitude. And that is what the Obamaviks don’t want the masses to think about.

When it comes to the midterm elections in 2010, Republicans are running a race against the clock, because it’s only a matter of time until the government has a large enough percentage of voters on its payroll and on the dole to assure a permanent majority in the House and Senate, not to mention permanent control of the White House.

Worst of all, the Republican Party itself has a whole army of Viktor Komarovskys in its ranks, ready to support the Obamaviks at the drop of a vote. Names like Mitt Romney (the de facto architect of Obamacare), John McCain (“I was in favor of illegal immigration before I was against it.”), Lindsey Graham (an unabashed hard-core progressive), Mike Huckabee (the slickest politician in America), Orrin Hatch (a deeply entrenched member of the go-along-to-get-along club) and Mitch McConnell (another deeply entrenched member of the same club) come quickly to mind.

These men have conclusively demonstrated that they are more than willing to support the progressives’ notion of “social justice” if that’s what it takes to get elected and re-elected. Their greatest threat comes from people with names like Bachmann, Ryan, DeMint, Rubio, and Paul & Paul.

Over the next five months, you can be sure that a lot of Republican blood will be spilled in the war between the Viktor Komarovskys of the Republican Party and those who refuse to go along with the business-as-usual Dr. Zhivago Option. And you can guess which side the socialists in the Democratic People’s Party will be cheering for.